Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
As for determining value, If someone offers to sell you a balloon for 1 cent, but you determine your desire for that balloon not to be worth 1 cent, that doesnt mean you are obliged to give the vendor 1 cent if someone on the other side of the carnival gives you one for free and you accept.
I don't follow your point here. Yes, you are right, that if I offer to sell you a balloon, and someone else gives you one (that that person owns) for free, then you don't have to pay me for it.
On the other hand, if someone else gives you one of *my* balloons for free, and he does not himself own it, he's going to jail. For your part, if you knew the balloon was stolen when you accepted it, that's also a crime. If you did not know, then you are safe...except that the balloon will be taken from you and given back to me.
The desire for the balloon to have a certain price is irrelevant in that case, since as the balloon was stolen goods you have no entitlement to it at all unless you meet my price.
Yes, "identity theft" is indeed an inaccurate term. It's simply fraud and/or forgery. Also, although it's not really "theft," identity theft is at least closer to actual theft than copyright infringement, because the person whose identity you were impersonating is actually left worse off after your crime than they were before it.
Of course that wouldn't be theft. It would be stupid for anyone to try to claim that it was. Yes, it's probably fraud, computer hacking, and any number of other crimes, but certainly not theft. I don't get your point here. I mean, you seem to be admitting that your computer crime as described above would not in fact be theft. So, uh...what's your point? Clearly there are many illegal actions other than theft.
The NET act only covers exchange of copies between people. If I buy a DVD and then make a backup copy for myself, I am not violating the NET act (although I would be violating the DMCA).
As long as we are agreed that criminal infringers are indeed criminals and unethical, I have no issue with whether you call them "thieves" or "infringers". That's just semantics.
That said, the name of the NET Act shows that Congress was likening infringement to "theft" , and there are plenty of definitions of theft that would allow for the taking of IP without permission to be included within it. Again, though, its the case of a crime by any other name, still being a crime.